


Here Be Dragons (The Past Is Another Country)

by Abbie



Series: Leave Out All the Rest [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Amnesia, Friendship, Gen, Secrets, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy and Oliver hang out, and Ollie is surprisingly helpful with a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Here Be Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago and totally forgot to put it up on AO3. Oops. Originally posted on Tumblr as a five-sentence-fic prompt by burningletter-, who provided the first sentence.

“Trust me Oliver, if I'd known he had dragons I would have warned you.”

“Have you even played this game before?” Ollie asked, annoyed, swearing as he mashed buttons frantically, on the verge of watching his character get barbecued.

Tommy, wedged into the opposite corner of the couch, didn’t bother to look away from his laptop, where he was scrolling through the latest financial report on the charity he had started in his mother’s name to benefit the survivors of the Glades disaster. Something wasn’t adding up, and though he couldn’t figure out _what_ ; he was almost certain there was roughly $10,000 dollars missing from the architectural restoration allocation. “Uh, once, I think. Like, a year ago.”

Oliver growled and dropped his controller on the coffee table with a clatter as his archer on the screen died a fiery death. “Whatever, this game is stupid anyways. Tell me again why we can’t just go out and get drunk?”

Tommy sighed and looked up over the laptop at Oliver, who was sprawling back against his couch and trying to look pathetic and pleading; Tommy had to wonder if he really used to have patience for this shit, or if growing up had just sucked the fun out of him, like Oliver seemed to believe. “Because I think somebody’s stealing from my charity and, much as I would _love_ to get fucking blasted and kill this financial report-induced headache, at least one of us needs to live up to the responsibilities we grew into, and since you don’t even remember yours, I get the lucky straw.”

Ollie made a face at him, but Tommy could tell he was a little hurt. “Look, I get it; you’ve got important stuff going on and don’t have time to entertain me. Sorry if I was bugging you, man.” Oliver sighed, frowning, and Tommy was surprised to realize his friend actually seemed to be focusing on his money problem. “What about Felicity, can’t she work some kind of computer magic to figure out where your money’s hiding?”

Tommy froze for a moment, breath stuck in his throat as the idea that maybe Oliver was remembering exactly what Felicity and her computer magic had done and could do tickled his brain—but he let it go; he couldn’t keep hoping Oliver’s memories were coming back every time he had a vaguely post-island-Oliver-like thought or moment. “That’s… actually not a bad idea. I’ll give her a call.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I stuck to the five-sentences rule of this prompt game about as well as I ever do.


	2. Secret Histories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity crashes the boys' night to save the day.

"Hey," Tommy greeted awkwardly as he swung the front door open. "You totally didn’t have to come do this tonight, it could have waited."

Felicity, standing before him in flats, skinny jeans, a tanktop and a light jacket with her laptop bag slung across her chest, shrugged and made a face. “Please, I was so bored I was starting to climb the walls. Semi-literally, because I’d resorted to yoga and was trying out some poses that basically dare gravity to end me and involve various vertical surfaces, and how sad is it that my Friday nights have resorted to trying out yoga poses that sound like they were lifted from the Kama Sutra and divorced from all the fun stuff?”

Tommy blinked at her, eyebrows rising, and licked his lips, carefully stifling a grin. “Uh. I don’t know how to answer that, so how about you just come in?”

Felicity grinned at him and did a little hop that sent her ponytail bouncing as she scooted around him and into the apartment.

"So. Yoga poses from the Kama Sutra, huh?" Oliver grinned lasciviously from his sprawl on the couch, eyebrows waggling, stopping Felicity in her tracks.

Sighing and rolling his eyes heavenward, Tommy shut the door and turned to find Felicity glaring up at him from inches away.

"You didn’t tell me you had company." Tommy tucked his chin and raised a reproachful brow, and Felicity frowned sourly, eyes cutting away. "…and okay, maybe I didn’t give you the chance."

"Oh, come on, Felicity, it won’t be that bad," Oliver cajoled brassily, tossing his head and smile dripping charm. "I don’t bite." He clicked his teeth together sharply. "Except when asked."

Felicity stared at him deadpan and wrinkled her nose, fingers clutching tight to the strap across her front. _"Down,_ boy.”

Tommy huffed a strained laugh, rubbing at the corner of his eyebrow. “ _Great_ talk, guys, this is—this is fun. Or hell. One of those.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and cut a hard glance between his two friends. “Play _nice_. Think we can manage that?”

Oliver’s eyes hooded as Felicity jutted her chin out in challenge, tiny shoulders practically bristling. Ollie looked away first, meeting Tommy’s eyes and sighing from his nose as he leaned forward, rising from the couch with a lazy, deliberate grace Tommy hadn’t seen him use in years.

"Sure," Oliver said, deliberately mild. "Think I’ll go get another beer." His eyes flicked to Felicity, cool and guarded. "You want one?"

Felicity blinked at him, surprised and wary. “Yeah. Okay. I mean, sure.”

Oliver nodded sharply and, without further ado, rounded the couch and head and vanished into the kitchen.

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Felicity turned to Tommy and slowly raised a brow.

Tommy sighed again. “Yeah, I don’t know. It’s—It’s _Ollie_. But it was his idea that I call you.”

Felicity’s lips pressed together, voice low. “That is not particularly reassuring. I feel like the dork girl about to get cruelly pranked by the popular frat guys.”

Tommy’s chin lowered, brow lifting and a smirk settling on his lips. “Right, because that’s _so_ you, Ms. Anyone-with-boobs-can-make-a-frat-boy-do-anything.”

Felicity lifted her chin. “ _I_ know that, but he doesn’t. And former frat boy or not, I am not using my boobs to make Oliver do _anything_. That’s asking for grief I could do without.”

Tommy just laughed softly, stepping closer and cupping her shoulder in his hand. “Don’t worry, they can stay safely under wraps.” He grinned at her wickedly as he guided her towards the now vacant couch. “I mean, unless you _want_ to unleash them, far be it from me to stand in the way of—”

She cut him off with a sharp smack to the gut. “You. Shut up. My boobs are staying exactly where they are, thank you, _under_ my shirt.”

Oliver strolled back into the living room at that precise moment, three perspiring beers dangling between his fingers, and one peaked eyebrow arched high. “Wow, the conversation got _interesting_ while I was away. What about your boobs, Felicity?”

Felicity heaved a scoff of frustration, eyes rolling as she dropped onto the couch cushions, pulling her bag over her head and settling it by her feet. “Nothing. _Nothing_ about my boobs. All conversation on the topic of my breasts will cease _i_ _mmediately._ " She glared up at Tommy as she leaned over to unzip her laptop free. "Got it?"

He laughed, but held his hands up, fingers spread in surrender. “For fear you will leave and strand me in this financial SNAFU nightmare, your word is my command.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed and she turned her attention to her laptop, opening it and booting it up as Tommy sat next to her and Oliver took the nearby armchair. “I wouldn’t. This is your charity, but the idea that someone is stealing thousands of dollars meant to go to rebuilding the Glades? That’s not okay with me.” She smiled, a cool, smug, slightly frightening smirk as she pulled up a new program with a few keystrokes. “I’m gonna find this guy—because embezzlers _always_ seem to be guys, have you noticed that?—and I’m going to make him _cry_.”

Tommy chuckled and shook his head in amazement, leaning back into the couch cushions to watch Felicity work.

He glanced over at Oliver, who was staring with wide, fixed-eyes and an incredulously arched brow at Felicity. Feeling Tommy’s gaze on him, he blinked at his friend and mouthed, “ _She’s terrifying_.”

"Yes," Felicity answered pleasantly, having seen him out of the corner of her eye. "I am."

Tommy bit his lip to swallow a cackle. He’d always been weirdly proud of how much a quiet badass Felicity was—and honestly, Oliver had been, too—and it was an odd thrill seeing Ollie learn all over again that Felicity Smoak was not to be fucked around with.

"Thanks again, Felicity," Tommy said, his hand falling from the back of the couch to rest between Felicity’s shoulder blades as she curled towards her laptop."I have put… a _lot_ of work into this charity, and it means—it means a _lot_ to me. And the idea of some other disgusting, greedy parasite using what I’ve built to _help_ people to make themselves fat and rich at the expense of people who have already been ground down and abused…”

The hand on Felicity’s back curled, fingernails biting into his palm. Tommy’s eyes dropped to his lap, then lifted to find Oliver observing him seriously. he held his friend’s sober gaze steadily. “We are _not_ our parents. We don’t hurt people just because they haven’t had our advantages, we sure as hell don’t turn a blind eye and let other people do it.”

Oliver stayed silent, but his chin dipped in the slightest of nods.

Ollie may not _remember_ coming into that sense of responsibility, of the horror and betrayal of their parents being unmasked as predatory monsters—among so many other things.

But, if Oliver had been many less than upstanding things, he had _never_ been callous or deliberately cruel; careless, yes, insulated by the ignorance afforded him by his privilege, certainly. But even at his shittiest and most selfish, Ollie wouldn’t have been able to learn what their families had wrought, and why, and _not care_.

Felicity shifted under Tommy’s hand, turning towards him with a soft, sad, understanding smile, taking his wrist and drawing his fist between her hands. Pressed between her palms, Tommy’s fingers smoothed into her grip, and when she squeezed, he squeezed back, smiling at her gratefully. “I’ll find him. We’ll stop him. We always—” she sucked in a breath, dropped her eyes, and Tommy stiffened slightly, deliberately not looking at Oliver.

 _We always do_ , she had been about to say.

Felicity shook her head, closed her eyes and swallowed, then lifted her chin with a strong, cheerful smile. “Honestly, this won’t even be hard! Mostly it’ll just be sitting back and letting the program sift through your records and tracing back through the maze of the money trail.” She smiled brightly and released Tommy’s hand onto the cushions between them. “By tomorrow morning, you’ll know who’s fleecing your charity.”

Over in his chair, Oliver was watching them with not a little disquiet—a growingly familiar feeling of late. Shifting his weight, he sifted rapidly through the reactions he could give, the questions he could ask, the deflections he might make or distractions he could offer, Who did he need to be? What did he want to turn this situation into?

It was a cycle familiar to Oliver as breathing, one he’d learned as a child, watching his parents don and discard smiles like masks for every occasion.

He’d never had to perform in front of Tommy before.

Lately he was performing every waking moment. It was exhausting, and he was beginning to resent it.

Putting on a grin, Oliver caught Felicity’s eye and waggled his eyebrows. “Is that strictly legal?”

Felicity blinked, then afforded him a long, measured stare; it seemed to cut straight through him, watchful and observant. She chose to give him a small smile. “Mostly. It’s always nice to have actual permission for once.”

Oliver smirked and shook his head. “Felicity Smoak, I didn’t know you were such a bad girl.”

She put her head to one side, giving him a droll look softened by a curled mouth. “These days, Oliver, you don’t know anything about me at all.”

Oliver nodded in concession and put his beer to his lips for a sip. “I’m learning.”

Tommy, glancing thoughtfully back and forth between them, slapped his knees and stood. “You know what? I’m hungry. Since this program’s gonna run for a while, how about I order some pizza?” He moved towards the kitchen, eyebrows raised enticingly. “Felicity, sausage and mushrooms?”

She nodded, and Oliver made a derisive face. “Supreme for me, Tommy.”

Tommy rolled his eyes as he walked away. “Yeah, buddy, I remember. I’m not the one with amnesia.”


End file.
